Few people have heard of it, yet many consider John Blankenbaker's KENBAK-1 to be the first commercial personal computer.
TV Tinplate Coin Bank plus Salt & Pepper Shakers
By bohus
I was combing through some old Retro Thing pictures, and found these. You can see from our old logo on the pics that I intended to post these a long time ago - so let's think of this as an RT "lost episode"!
To me the TV set above is the "classic" shape of a television - even though I didn't grow up with one like it. The big boxy form, the spindly legs... the perfect set to watch "Dick Van Dyke" on, hopefully without tripping over it. When you turn the knob on the front, the salt & pepper shakers magically rise out of the top - ready to spice up A Swanson TV dinner or the foil turban of a Jiffy Pop.
This tinplate bank is a simple affair - just a tin box with a slot cut into the removable lid. In some ways it kind of resembles the metal Band-Aid boxes of years past (which I used as a bank through my childhood). The bank is only 3" high, so it won't hold enough money to get a plasma screen or a projector. Then again if your actual TV has the classic looks that this bank is modeled on, maybe you should hang onto it.
These are a reminder of when TV was such a fascinating and new invention, it caught the public consciousness the same way that any fad does. Obviously TV's impact has surpassed trends like the hula hoop and the pet rock - if you look hard you can still find novelties today that "celebrate" the TV set. So where are the toy versions of cable modems and Tivo's?
